Guarantee seals per se are well known with typical examples including metal caps, having a lower pilfer indicating severable ring that is retained on the neck of the bottle, and glued paper string seals that are commonly used on liquor bottles. It is common in the wine industry to use paper foil which has been wrapped on the bottle to indicate to the customer that no one has tampered with the contents of the bottle after it has left the factory.
With wide spread use of easily molded plastic various plastic guarantee seals have been proposed. The most commonly used plastics are polyethylene and polypropylene due to their good forming properties and resiliency. However, these materials are quite strong in shear strength and do not tear easily, therefore certain problems have resulted when the user tries to break the seal. This particular problem is identified in Canadian Pat. No. 815,366 which discloses a widely accepted guarantee seal comprising a cap portion and a skirt portion separated by a band. The problem of breaking the seal, i.e. causing a tearing action of a portion of the plastic seal, is overcome by allowing the user to progressively break each rib joining the band to the cap and the skirt. This provides a satisfactory system that can easily be opened although, certain problems arise in manufacturing this seal. Another problem is once the separable band has been torn by the user a redundant plastic strip is left in the users hands and this band often becomes litter.
The particular design in Canadian Pat. No. 815,366 uses the combined strength of the ribs to ensure the closure does not collapse when it is being applied to a container. In order to provide this axial strength the spacing between adjacent ribs is quite small which implies the mold must be quite detailed and precise. As the mold wears flashing (the formation of a thin web of material in what should be a gap) may occur between ribs thereby increasing the strength required to remove the band. The present invention overcomes these problems due to its unique structure that incorporates a stop mechanism which provides the required axial strength for application thereby allowing the ribs to be spaced further from one another and reducing the likelihood of flashing.